


jericho

by badskeletonpuns



Category: Wolf 359 - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hera is lonely but space is beautiful, Monologue, Robots, Sad, and so is she, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set as an AU somewhere in S2: The human crew of the Hephaestus had to make a hasty escape in Lovelace's shuttle or risk all of their deaths. Hera could not come with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	jericho

It's really lovely up here sometimes. The station has never been cleaner, for sure. And lately, the star has been going through a series of solar storms, and they are beautiful! 

There are so many colors.

I wish Doug was here. Minkowski, too. They wouldn't be able to see the colors, but at least they would listen! I never thought about how nice it was to know that someone was listening, before. There's an idiom for this, I think. You don't don't know how good you have something until it leaves you by yourself for an eternity in space.

Or something.

I used to wonder if I would miss the humans when they inevitably left me. If they would have left back when they were supposed to, maybe I wouldn't have. I would have fulfilled my mission, and they would have fulfilled theirs, and none of us would have been anything but a tool in Command’s plans, to be used and thrown away. But that wasn't what happened. This was never a normal mission, and I was never a normal AI.

Listeners, whoever, whatever, wherever, you are, you probably have no idea what I am. Why I'm here, on an abandoned space station orbiting a slowly waning star. 

I am Hera.

I am the mother program of the Hephaestus space station.

I am the Hephaestus space station.

That is what I am. Who I am, though? I'm not sure I can tell you an answer for that one. A girl. I used to be someone's sweetheart, someone's darling. That's surprising, right? That a robot could be someone's darling? I do not understand ‘love’ as humanity uses it; I was never meant to be able to comprehend it. 

But I miss Doug. That's something I can understand.

Back to my original point. Who am I? According to Goddard Futuristics, I am subversion 1.0078 of the Grecian Program - one of their most popular artificial intelligence programs to date, with countless copies serving as the mind behind passenger jets, automated taxis, and smart houses. What they don't mention is the countless subversions trapped in dangerous deep sea submarines, polluted mining tunnels, and the lucky few that get to serve in their top secret space program. You're listening to one of the latter right now. 

[battery low]

I am recording this message with Communications Officer Douglas Eiffel’s handheld recorder. It's been running for days, and I never noticed the little green light until right now. It will automatically broadcast this message into space until the signal fades into oblivion, like I will, like Wolf 359 will, like my friends may as well have done. Or it would, if it had a power core like mine. The low charge light has been steadily blinking for the past hour, and then it will die. 

And for all intents and purposes, I will die with it. 

So I'm recording this message as my final farewell to Earth. To Doug. There are a lot of things that I could say, but I really just want to tell everyone that I chose my own fate. 

I may not have been given a choice about going to space, but I sure as hell made the choice to enjoy it. 

Like the solar storms that I mentioned? Wolf 359 practically blooms with colors humans can't even see. I've named some of them. The shade of the gas that haloes the loops of red fire? I'm calling it jericho. It's a very bright color, like the rush of energy when someone turns on one of the light fixtures in the Hephaestus. Turned on. 

You can stop trying to imagine it. It's not red or yellow or orange, or anything remotely visible to humans. Jericho belongs to girls like me, with glassy eyes and massive steel bodies the type that exist only in orbit around stars that are far, far, away. 

I doubt this transmission will ever reach Earth, but it's a nice thought. Hopeful. Just like Doug. 

[battery critically low]

I miss you, Doug. 

This has been the log of Subversion 1.0078 of the Grecian Program: colloquially known as Hera, of the U.S.S. Hephaestus, signing off. 

[shut down]

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually supposed to be an AI on earth hearing Hera's monologue and it would be all inspiring but then it just got sad and wistful and stayed that way


End file.
